Supporting Wisconsin’s Agriculture

Advocating for Wisconsin’s Farmers

Wisconsin is the nation’s leading cranberry producer, and the cranberry industry contributes close to $300 million annually to our state’s economy and supports nearly 3,400 jobs.

As the co-chair of the congressional cranberry caucus, Tammy has worked to provide cranberry growers with support and advocacy they need to succeed. When there was an oversupply of cranberries in the marketplace and commodity prices sunk, Tammy wrote a letter to the USDA asking the agency to consider purchasing cranberries at no cost to the taxpayer, so growers would not take a huge financial hit.

Tammy also lead a bipartisan effort to protect Wisconsin and American dairy farmers and producers from an EU push to prohibit American cheeses from using common brand names for cheeses like asiago, feta, and parmesan.

Supporting Sustainable and Organic Farming Practices

The agricultural sector represents 13% of Wisconsin’s economy and provides over 350,000 jobs to Wisconsinites. And over the past few years, one of the fastest growing parts of the agricultural industry has been organic farming and production.

In order to keep the “Grown in Wisconsin” economy prosperous, Tammy has pushed for investments in organic farming research.

Tammy has also pushed for more responsible practices in Wisconsin’s logging industry to keep our forests healthy and our timber economy moving forward. When the U.S. Forest Service fell short of meeting the government’s goals for logging in national forests, she called for changes to support Wisconsin’s logging industry by increasing harvests and requiring loggers to adhere to national standards for sustainable logging.

Protecting Wisconsin’s Forests

Tammy has been a long-time advocate of efforts to preserve our forests. She supported the Good Neighbor Authority Agreement, which allowed the U.S. Forest Service to enter agreements with states so the service could perform forest, rangeland and watershed restoration work on National Forest System lands.

Additionally, Tammy has been a vocal supporter of measures to rectify funding issues that are crippling the U.S. Forest Service’s ability to manage our national forests.

Due to the increasing frequency of wildfires across the nation and here in Wisconsin, the U.S. Forest Service has to engage in a broken budgetary practice called “fire borrowing,” in which the Forest Service takes money to fight wildfires from the general forest management fund.

This depletes the Forest Service of funds and diverts critical funding from Wisconsin. In the Badger State, the forest products industry contributes 50,000 jobs and pays over $3 billion in wages. Fire borrowing leads to long project delays and jeopardizes jobs.

Tammy supports a budgetary solution that would treat large wildfires like the natural disasters that they are, so that the Forest Service’s budget can be stabilized and returned to the management of timber sales, forest health, and other projects.